Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Digs Into Melinda May's Past

The truth about what happened to Agent Coulson isn't the only secret Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been keeping.When the ABC super series debuted, Coulson (Clark Gregg) had to coax Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen) back into the field since she ...

When the ABC super series debuted, Coulson (Clark Gregg) had to coax Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen) back into the field since she took a desk job after some incident that was likely the catalyst for her nickname The Cavalry. But May will face her past head-on during Tuesday's episode (8/7c, ABC) when one of her secrets could be the key to saving the team.

"Soon enough we'll start peeling back the layers of that," executive producer Jed Whedon tells TVGuide.com. "Now that we've gotten the first episodes under our belt and we've established the characters, we have a little bit more freedom to tell singular stories about the characters and dive into story lines like that, which makes us excited about the back half of the season."

But fellow executive producer Maurissa Tancharoen cautions that intricacies of May's past, like Coulson's, won't be revealed right away. "That may not just be all laid out in one episode," she says. "It's a complicated past so there are many layers to it."

Fortunately, Coulson and May digging into Skye's (Chloe Bennet) past will actually reveal some insight into their own. "We were excited to get into their history and into Skye's history," Whedon says. "As secrets become uncovered for Coulson, he's going to become a little more driven to uncover more secrets about the people around him." Here's hoping he doesn't discover May and Ward's (Brett Dalton) apparent dalliance!

Page 2 of 2 - Even though May already offered Coulson her services, she won't be keen to help him. "May is going to be reluctant to dive any deeper into Skye's past because she's already been a bit wary of her being part of the team in the first place," Tancharoen adds. "May was coming from a place where she isolated herself in administration and she was trying to basically cut all ties and not involve herself in this team. To dive into the personal life of one of her teammates is something that's going to be challenging for her. We'll see how she handles that."